Chronicles from the Nordic Expedition...
“We are 64 degrees North, up close to the Artic circle ”the Captain announced, and the thought made me freeze in my seat… Having lived in the tropical belt all my life, the word ‘north’ so far in my dictionary only meant going up on the mountains, measured in height from sea level… This was different, this was latitudinal north, that I had read only in geography textbooks… I glanced around at the co-passengers but could see no sign of anxiety on them… they probably knew where they were getting to, I didn’t… my two little girls, sitting next to me, were busy peeping out of the window, looking at the Land of the Ice.. anxiety not touching them even remotely… and the Captain continued “Welcome to the Northernmost capital city of the World - Reykjavik”..
My research had warned me of the limited daylight, sunrise at 11.25am and sunset at 3.10pm to be precise.. It was 7.30 PM when we deplaned and all we expected was to see a snoozed city in pitch darkness.. We had a booking with Flybus to transport us from the airport to the hotel we were to put up in… With an extremely efficient lady at the flybus counter, a cheerful and helpful bus driver and the comfortable bus ride itself we reached our hotel with ease… city was nowhere close to snoozing… it was infact buzzing… we, however had the next whole day to explore the buzz and so decided to snooze off early that night..
Day1
Checking the weather app in the morning, from beneath the blanket itself, had become a norm for a few days now, with we having spent ten days in UK by then, with an ever fluctuating weather… this day showed current temp (7am) at minus 1 degrees, to go up to a decent 2 degrees during the day.. hoping for a bright day ahead, we ventured out in the city… A tourist information centre is the best place to start exploring a new place and we found one in the City Hall… it helped us acclimatize with everything Nordic… having picked up a few information brochures and tourist maps, began the exploration… the graffiti embellished walkways, lined with fragrant ‘fish n chips’ outlets and hotdog cafes, the road-side stalls selling local hand-made folk-art, made us immerse in the charm of this city.. we walked around the old harbor with neatly lined boats, as their reflection beamed in the huge glass structure of the concert hall, Harpa.. after satiating ourselves with some delicious Icelandic fish, we headed to watch their giant variety, the Whales.. the organizers advised us against the Whale watching adventure as they forecasted rough seas and bumpy rides… but seeing the two little dejected faces next to me, I didn’t give up… we spent the next four hours in the North Atlantic, on the ‘not-so-rough’ waters (if compared to our daily bumpy road rides back home), and witnessing some huge creatures jumping up and down the waves… well, there was a guide on the boat, and he was doing a great job locating the whales for us, and also throwing random names of the kinds of whales that we were seeing… what I could not fathom is how would one recognize a whale type when these whales decide to show either their head or tail at one time and that too only for a split second.. nonetheless we were excited about spotting the whales, did not matter how many types of them… what we had to brave then was the cold(est ever) wind which left us sensationless for rest of the evening…
But the evening was not over for us yet, the ever-eager souls that we are, we booked ourselves for a late evening bus tour to try our luck at seeing the Northern lights in the outskirts of the city… but not so lucky we were, and we returned frozen and numb yet again…lesson learnt, it is not the cold, but the wind that we need to be careful about…this lesson early on helped us immensely over the next few days of our stay in Iceland
This was the beginning of our three day tour of Iceland with GJ travel, a long standing tour operator in Reykjavik.. the day was to start early at 8am with city sight-seeing on the itinerary… while I wondered what would we see in the dark-before-the-dawn, the tour company ofcourse knew what they did… we started with Tjornin, the pond in the center of the city…the almost-frozen pond shone in the dim shimmering city lights, lending a splendid backdrop to the brigade of ducks and geese afloat there.. we did see a few people walking on the frozen part of the pond, and popped a question in my mind “what if the ice cover caves in?”… while we are good at swimming, doing that in frozen waters was not my idea of this holiday… lets say we were not adventurous enough and so we let that be left for our imagination… next couple of hours we drove around the city, with our guide narrating the history and geography of the city in the most entertaining and enthralling style... one of the prominent structures that made a lasting impression on me was Hallgrímskirkja –a Lutheran church built in the 1930s and one of the tallest structures in the city. The architecture of the church is inspired by the volcanic eruptions and lava flows, typical of Iceland’s topography… The views from top of the church tower were breathtaking, but even before we could absorb them all (that is capturing as pictures for me!), we were hurried out to go to the next destination, lest we would have gotten late…as I pondered on what could be so pressing a reason that I had to let go pressing the shutters, we were brought to Perlan, a glass building situated on the hill Öskjuhlíð… just in time for the sunrise-moment… the panoramic view of the sun rising over the city of Reykjavik had my camera shutters clicking unstoppably…
From here we began our journey to the land of horses, land of sheep and the land of Ice… Iceland has a human population of about three lakh, 90% of which stays in Reykjavik and abouts… while much of the rest of Iceland is inhabitable, whatever is accessible, is inhabited by horses (on last count were in excess of 80,000, lending a baffling ratio of 1 horse per family!!) and by sheep (not sure if they even got down to counting them !!)… a drive around the countryside and we see them grazing around the mountain slopes… but to see them up and close, you need to visit their breeding facilities and shelters, where you learn everything about their breeds, behavior and bearings… and you may possibly get to ride them too…
We were on our way to Hella, our home for next two nights, driving across the Icelandic landscapes that changed every few miles.. through the snow covered lava fields (created from volcanoes erupted as early as 10,000 years ago), by the black sand beaches, around the
Day 2
This was the beginning of our three day tour of Iceland with GJ travel, a long standing tour operator in Reykjavik.. the day was to start early at 8am with city sight-seeing on the itinerary… while I wondered what would we see in the dark-before-the-dawn, the tour company ofcourse knew what they did… we started with Tjornin, the pond in the center of the city…the almost-frozen pond shone in the dim shimmering city lights, lending a splendid backdrop to the brigade of ducks and geese afloat there.. we did see a few people walking on the frozen part of the pond, and popped a question in my mind “what if the ice cover caves in?”… while we are good at swimming, doing that in frozen waters was not my idea of this holiday… lets say we were not adventurous enough and so we let that be left for our imagination… next couple of hours we drove around the city, with our guide narrating the history and geography of the city in the most entertaining and enthralling style... one of the prominent structures that made a lasting impression on me was Hallgrímskirkja –a Lutheran church built in the 1930s and one of the tallest structures in the city. The architecture of the church is inspired by the volcanic eruptions and lava flows, typical of Iceland’s topography… The views from top of the church tower were breathtaking, but even before we could absorb them all (that is capturing as pictures for me!), we were hurried out to go to the next destination, lest we would have gotten late…as I pondered on what could be so pressing a reason that I had to let go pressing the shutters, we were brought to Perlan, a glass building situated on the hill Öskjuhlíð… just in time for the sunrise-moment… the panoramic view of the sun rising over the city of Reykjavik had my camera shutters clicking unstoppably…
From here we began our journey to the land of horses, land of sheep and the land of Ice… Iceland has a human population of about three lakh, 90% of which stays in Reykjavik and abouts… while much of the rest of Iceland is inhabitable, whatever is accessible, is inhabited by horses (on last count were in excess of 80,000, lending a baffling ratio of 1 horse per family!!) and by sheep (not sure if they even got down to counting them !!)… a drive around the countryside and we see them grazing around the mountain slopes… but to see them up and close, you need to visit their breeding facilities and shelters, where you learn everything about their breeds, behavior and bearings… and you may possibly get to ride them too…We were on our way to Hella, our home for next two nights, driving across the Icelandic landscapes that changed every few miles.. through the snow covered lava fields (created from volcanoes erupted as early as 10,000 years ago), by the black sand beaches, around the
geo-thermal hot springs… revising multitude of geography lessons all through… to the extent that we also stopped over at a small foot-bridge which stood separating the two continents of Europe and North America… (and an obvious question from my 10 year old – Don’t we need a visa to go to North America? –to which I had to explain how it is two continents in one country)
Hella is a small town, sparsely populated, located in the south of Iceland, perfect setting for viewing the Northern Lights…we did all the ‘advised’ tasks of setting up alarms at regular intervals through the night, staying dressed for outdoors in case of a midnight call from the hotel reception, trying out all camera settings beforehand and the likes… but the Northern Lights did not pay a visit to us that night…
Day 3
Iceland has much more than its Snowy Spectacles and this day was all about that much more.. the much famed ever-steaming Blue Lagoon, partly frozen-partly flowing Gulfoss (waterfall), the continuously erupting Geyser (hot water spring) was all on the list… but besides these, a visit to a green house astonished me to see how vegetables are grown natively… these are enclosures, maintained at warm temperatures, using their rich natural heating resource – the geothermal energy. Iceland being cold, no insects thrive and so no pesticides are needed (‘compulsive’ organic farming this is !!)… Also, all of this is automated, to maintain daylight-darkness cycles, regulate O2 and CO2 levels etc… this was quite an advanced usage of technology, even for my mind which is occupationally trained to think only Technology!!
Highlight of this day, however, was visit to Skógasafn History Museum.. It took us through the Making-of-Iceland, from the Settlement to the present day… It delivers a fascinating journey of the primitive ways of living of Icelandic natives till as late as 1940s and houses a vast collection of memorabilia, showcasing how people lived in earlier years and the natural survival techniques and tools they used to beat the extreme weather conditions… the communication and transport section of the museum holds the evolution of these over years… what struck me the most is that Iceland continued its primitive ways of living till 1940 when World War II broke out… During the World War, the country was made a strategic base by the British and immediately after by the Americans… to secure comfort and facilities for their occupants, the British and the Americans initiated various projects and injected money onsite to fund them… this transformed Iceland’s economy in many ways… while many a country worldwide have undergone transformation over decades, it took only those five years for Iceland to transform from Europe’s poorest country to one of the world’s wealthiest…
Day 4
Honestly, the purpose of the trip was achieved with the grand Auroras visiting us… but Iceland had more in store… the geo-thermally heated scapes and the sun-glazed icy terrains continued to enchant us… we spent half a day doing glacier walk, one of the most fun adventures I had personally undertaken, with my two little girls tugging onto me… thankfully, it has not much to do with fitness levels, given that we chose the easy grade… while it was merely a walk on ice, it was everything I had not experienced ever before… the feeling of ‘walking on a flowing river’, a river of ice… alongside the steep ridges and narrow crevasses that provided a streak of adventure (but with two minors with me, we were not allowed to go anywhere near them, forget peep down them)… sun warmed up our heads while our feet froze in the ice (mind remained unsure of what temperature to sense)… eyes continuously flickered with the wind and the sun-glaze, but also remained wide open witnessing the most spectacular scenery around created from the thousands of years of rock and ice formations… Glaciers are a phenomenon that are speedily receding and am glad we experienced this ‘soon-to-be-extinct’ variety of landscape in this life…
Other part of the day was dedicated to seeing some of the local factories and produces… one was of Skyr, Iceland’s popular version of yogurt, that comes in very many flavours.. each one of us had picked our favorites and we enjoyed it every single day, every single meal… the other factory was of IceWear, the local brand that makes woolens, Nordic ones… besides the fact that these were technologically advanced production units, with minimum manual intervention, the incredibility of these lie in their sustainable energy footprint… these also enhanced our learning around Iceland’s export of energy.. no this energy is not packed and exported… infact it is consumed locally… there are a few factories in Iceland which import raw material (some from as far as Australia!!), manufacture the goods and export all of the finished product to European countries… and believe it or not, the whole process is much more economical doing in Iceland than in the source or consuming country… only because of the ready availability of natural and cheap energy sources.. this form of energy export has given Iceland a very respectable place on the World Economic Map…
Day 5
We were back in Reykjavik, packed up to leave later in the day… the plan originally was to just rest it out… but the the coldness outside seemed more snug and cozy, than the warm hotel interiors… we stepped out into the city for one last glimpse and one last walk… we headed up Laugarvegur, the street that houses choicest of Icelandic handmade goods, woolens and the latest in Nordic fashion.. a quaint café invited us with its fresh aroma of hotdog, cheesecake and coffee… sitting in that café, we saw the city pass by us… it was the end of our exploration of this gorgeous country, but the quest had not ended… We realized we had not had time for many a ‘must-see’ places like the various museums (the Icelandic Phallological Museum or the penis museum had my attention), art galleries, cultural zones, open-air thermal pools… but what we had seen over these four days was enough to make us fall in love with Iceland forever…
While quite a few geography lessons got polished in the endeavor, many incredible chapters were added to our history, science and sociology learnings… we carry them in our heart, knowing well that it is travel to such places that give us real life-lessons yet extend our imaginings, humbles us with its vagaries and then builds our grit to endure them, teaches us relevance of boundaries and still make the horizons non-existent…
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